


Lies My Parents Told Me

by TrivialPursuit



Series: Triviaglass Avengers 'Verse [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Death, F/M, Family, Fluff, Gen, Growing Up, Lies, M/M, Moments in life, Multi, Older Man/Younger Woman, Original Characters - Freeform, Parent!Avengers, Scars, Suicide, Trauma, baby!avengers, implied PTSD, life - Freeform, slightly incestuous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-25 02:03:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrivialPursuit/pseuds/TrivialPursuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.<br/>-Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ten lies the Avengers told each of their children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Roman Bryusovitch Banner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That the people you love never really leave you.

 

Monsters are real and ghosts are real too. They live inside of us and sometimes, they win.

-Stephan King

~

  1. That there are good people and bad people. Perhaps this is never something he is told, but rather an impression he receives. Until he turns sixteen Roman's mama is a superhero. Then she's a super spy. When he turns forty-three, an impossibly aged Nick Fury lets him read his mother's file. And it turns out she's not a just a superhero and a super spy, she was also a plain old spy, a killer, a ballerina, a thief, an exercise in biological and psychological engineering, a sociopath, a liar, a lover. So many pieces of her that he never got to see, he only saw the best, just like when he only ever saw the best in his father, not the angry, scared, sad parts. And maybe it was for the best.
  2. That Mama makes blini from the same recipe her mother used. Mama got her blini recipe from the internet, just like she got her samovar from the antique shop run by the old White Russian couple in Brighton Beach and her Fabergé egg from a dead American furrier's mistress. Mama does not have a history, or at least, she does not have a genealogy and so she weaves her son a family out of lies and half-truths until Roman is old enough to thoughtlessly unpick the family tapestry she has so lovingly created for him. This will be something he regrets. 
  3. That time that Roman found his Papa sitting in his lab with a gun like Mama and  _Tetya_  Maria and  _Dyadya_  Clint use pointed at his head Papa was just playing. He called for his Papa and Roman's father put the gun down, wrapped his son in his arms, and lied to him. Roman knows this was a lie because Papa told Roman never to tell Mama about it. Roman is sure that Mama finds out because Mama knows everything and a week later a man named General Ross dies in his sleep and Papa's shoulders finally relax
  4. That he shouldn't have to fight their battles or take up their mantles when they can no longer support the crushing weight of being the 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes'. The world will always need someone to protect it, so when their parents drop the torch, the 'Minivengers', as  _Tetya_  Darcy had dubbed them, took it up. Roman becomes the Hulk to remind people that not all monsters are evil.
  5. That the people you love never really leave you. Because they do. Everyone does eventually.
  6. That Papa will never hurt him. Roman knows his father will never hurt him the same way Dedushka hurt Papa. Roman also sees the fear lurking under pride and love and wonder in his father's eyes whenever he looks at his son. Roman supposes he owes Dedushka in some sense because without his rage Papa would have been normal all his life and have married the pretty but dull-looking woman that appears with his father in photos at Culver and had some equally dull children named Victor or Regina. But Papa hurts Roma whenever the pride and wonder slide away and only the fear remains
  7. That only the good die young. Well, this might have been a little joking on his mama's side, but he know's it meant something to her and his father since it was carved on the inside of the wedding bands they sometimes wore. Roman thinks his parents were, ultimately, people who loved each other and what they stood for. And maybe that's all you need to make you 'good'. 
  8. That torture is simple. It isn't. It's an art; a careful application of force to create the maximal effect. Roma meets the man introduced to him as 'Dr. Lee' when he's sixteen. His  _mama_  had always said that only the unskilled spies use torture to get what they want, that it is a last resort, but Roman sees the beauty in what Dr Lee does. Only the very best operatives would be able to notice and exploit his mother's weaknesses. Roman canning help but think how wrong his mother was when her screams rip through the room as Dr Lee opens Roma's mouth and reaches in with a pair of pliers.
  9. That Mama is safe to be around. Once, when Papa goes away and the  _Zelenyy Voi_ n comes out. The  _Zelenyy Voin_  is only unhappy for a little while until Mama sticks a funny little stick into the  _Zelenyy Voin_ 's arm and he drops down to the ground, his head cradling into Mama's lap. She'd smiles and strokes the  _Zelenyy Voin_ 's hair like Roma'd seen her do to his papa so many times. 'You were right  _lyubovnik_ , there really is magic in science, in every tranquilizer there's an apple  for my sleeping beauty.' 
  10. That everything was going to be alright. Because, eventually, it wasn't anymore, was it?



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> '...There really is magic in science, in every tranquilizer there's an apple for my sleeping beauty.' is a bastardization of A Softer World #35.
> 
> Did any of you pick up the Gorky Park reference?


	2. Natalie Maria Potts-Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That there weren't monsters under her bed.

Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.

-Bob Thaves

 

~

  1. That she was named after Auntie Natasha. This is, in fact, a truth. Sort of. Natalie was named after the person her auntie was when her parents first met her, a person who is not her Auntie Natasha. Natalie is named after a woman who lives in the carrousel of her auntie's Liar's Palace. Natalie is named after a nobody and everybody.
  2. That Natalie didn't have to be a Stark (She could be a Potts). This is ridiculous, and everyone who tells her it knows just how silly they sound. Natalie was a Stark from the moment she created her first computer virus at age three and shut down S.H.I.E.L.D. for five hours. Natalie was always a Stark.
  3. That alcoholism was a serious problem. This may not be explicitly false, but all the really cool people Natalie's met have been barflies, so as long as you're not that attached to your liver. 
  4. That Grandpa Howard is a bad guy. Natalie thinks Grandpa might have been a really nice guy before the Accident, as Uncle Steve calls it. Natalie asked Corporal Dugan about Howard Stark once and he said that 'Howard was a profoundly damaged man who lost a lot in a very short timeframe and who handled the loss very badly. But before all that he was completely brilliant, like your dad except with better social skills'. Natalie's still not totally sure what she thinks about Grandpa.
  5. That men were evil and she should stay away from them. The truth of this is probably dependant on a case-by-case basis, but on the whole Natalie's found all the boys she went out with in high school and university to be very nice (Though this may have something to do with the fact that, whenever someone picked her up for a date her father insisted on showing them his machine shop.).
  6. That one day everything her parents sacrificed to make the world safe would be worth something. She knows it's not true though, the old villains will fall or become archaic and redundant and new ones with bigger guns and fancier toys will rise up to take their place.
  7. That lying is bad. Natalie's Mommy lies all the time; to reporters, Daddy, the men in suits, her friends, the people who work at Daddy's company. Daddy lies too, but not so much (though sometimes Natalie thinks people prefer lies to his truths). Natalie doesn't like it when people lie to her, but she knows that lies protect people, because sometimes, the truth does not set you free. So Natalie lies to protect the people she loves from the truth. When Mommy and Daddy die, Atom will become the genius, the showman, the Stark, and Natalie will become the protector of keys, the spinner of lies, the keeper of secrets. 
  8. That didn't silence hurt. This wasn't something her father told Natalie but rather something she saw. If there was silence her father had to fill it up with noise; music, talking, shouts, murmurs, whispers, chewing, whatever so that it wasn't quiet anymore. Natalie vows that when her father is no longer able to fill up the silences she will do it for him. 
  9. That the suit would protect her father. Everything breaks, and, like her Uncle Clint, Natalie's Daddy is just another squishy human under all the metal. 
  10. That there weren't monsters under her bed. Well, maybe they weren't under her literal  _bed_ , but there  _were_  monsters.




	3. Adam Yinsen 'Atom' Potts-Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That being a Stark meant nothing when it really mattered.

  
If somebody told you I was just your average ordinary guy, not a care in the world, somebody lied.

- _Spider-Man_

~

 

  1. That sometimes you don't see it coming. When Evior strokes his hair back and kisses his forehead he knows he should have seen it coming. When his father starts dusting his face with makeup to keep it at its usual tone he should have seen it coming. When Natalie asks what Roman's doing in every email the first year they're both at MIT he should have seen it coming. When Uncle Clint stops singing along when his favourite songs come on the radio he should have seen it coming. When Eero can't look any of them in the eye he should have seen it coming. The signs are always there, Atom just chooses not to look. 
  2. That people drink when they're happy. This isn't a lie that lasts very long in the Stark-Potts household, yet it is a lie that is told nonetheless. When Mommy and Daddy fight and Daddy goes down to his workshop to listen to angry music and toss back bitter-tasting amber liquid and Mommy goes to the kitchen and drinks something called 'Château Neuf' by the bottle, Atom knows neither of them are happy. When Auntie Natasha tosses back little glasses of what Atom is sure is water until he is three and tries it out and, before each drink, toasts ' _Nostrovia_ ', ' _Yelena Belova_ ',  ' _Matushka Rossiya_ ', and ' _Ivan Petrovich_ ' until Uncle Bruce carefully leads her off to bed. 
  3. That his father would disown him if he went to CalTech. Tony Stark is very proud of his  _alma mater_  and even more proud of his children. So what if he helps MITers to steal the canon  _again_  just to rub it in Atom's face? And so what if Atom just  _might_  have re-painted all the Iron Man suits orange and white? He got his second PhD. at MIT and besides, Natalie went there for her third Masters, all of which made up for the slight of not having a Brass Rat on Atom's finger the first time around. 
  4. That being a genius was better. Sure, he built his first solo rocket when he was three, and sure he was at CalTech by the time he was sixteen, but it was really lonely. Because while Roman was as smart as Atom, Roman went to Culver (For the sole purpose of rubbing his existence in the faces of his father's old colleagues, who quietly seethed whenever the Black Widow decided to pop over to see her son and gleefully intimidate her husband's former colleagues), so they don't go to the same university for six years until they both move to MIT. It sucks walking through schools and being shorter, younger, richer, smarter that everyone else and being looked down on for it. It hurts when he can't have real, normal friends in his age group because they all look down on him as a freak.
  5. That being a Stark meant nothing when it really mattered. Maybe being a Stark would never mean anything to his father, but to Atom it meant that he had a family, to Atom it meant that he had parents who loved him, to Atom it meant family and love and safety and security.
  6. That his name is Adam. His name is Atom, duh (Auntie Darcy taught him that word. Also, philibuster and digress, which is what he's doing right now). It's what Daddy and all his Aunties and Uncles call him and 'Talie, who's his twin and so she should indubitably (Auntie Darcy taught him that one too) know what his name is. The only one who doesn't call him Atom is Mommy. She calls him Adam so Atom thinks she must be confused and he tries to tell her. Eventually she just throws up her hands just like he's seen her do with Daddy and walk away, muttering about 'Starks'. 
  7. That two is better than one. Don't get him wrong, Atom loves Natalie with all his heart, he can't even begin to imagine what life would be like without her. But like most things in life, she is a mixed blessing. Atom loves having a twin to confide in, but he hates that they are seen as just two halves of a whole. Which is ridiculous. Atom builds (Robotics, physics, biology, astronomy) and Natalie destroys (Poisons, explosives, viruses - virtual or otherwise.). Atom likes sci-fi and fantasy, Natalie likes the classics and long philosophical musings. Atom is the archetypical Absent Minded Professor (even if he's a teenager) and Natalie is edgy and smokey, a mixture of _Femme Fatale_ and Debbie Harry. Atom is reserved, but what he shows is his true self, Natalie is loud, exuberant, coy, seductive, but none of the faces she shows are her own. 
  8.  That theoretical physics were for pussies. (This was another Anthony Edward Stark special.) Atom thought his father was full of shit. Theoretical physics are not for the faint if heart; how can someone weak spend their lives pouring over chalkboards of equations for things that they're not sure will ever exist and can never see.
  9. That teenaged girls are human beings. Atom's sure that teenaged girls aren't human, that there must be some sort of alien species who come in and body snatch perfectly normal and healthy girls and turning them into vicious killing machines on their thirteenth birthday. Atom shares this feeling with Roman and they spend most of the year in which they are thirteen trying to prove this theory, though they eventually have to stop when their research grinds to a halt because none of the teenaged girls in their acquaintance except for Evil are willing to donate blood for science.
  10. That there is love in the world. Atom can't see it. He can't see it when he he looks at pictures of the destruction his family has caused. Atom can't see it when he looks at Uncle Thor's family. Atom can't see it when when he reads a history book. Atom can't see it when he looks through his microscope or at his machine. Atom can't see it when he looks at people walking down the street. Atom can't see it when he goes to Stark Industries Board of Directors meetings. Atom can't see it every morning when he hears the latest news. But Atom can see it when he and Evil curl up on the couch together on a rainy day, she with her books and he with his StarkPad. So maybe his parents weren't totally wrong.



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Atom talks about the MITers stealing a canon he's talking about this: http://www.howeandser.com


	4. Evior 'Evil' Thorsdóttir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That everyone dies.

  
“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly..."

  _– Sandman_ , Neil Gaiman

**~**

 

 

  1. That she was a princess of Asgard. No matter how noble her father's house and how lauded her mother was, Evior would always be the bastard child of Prince Thor and the Midgardian. It was to be expected, of course, she supposed, no self-respecting Asgardian would want the blood of their royal house mixing with that of a commoner. It wasn't that they didn't like Mother, it's just that they would massively preferred it had Father fallen in love with Lady Sif and had proper Asgardian warriors for children. Evior doesn't go to Asgard much.
  2. That she is still beautiful. Evior was pretty, she knows that. She looks rather like her mother  did when she was young and just getting her Bachelor, or at least Evior was going to, before someone from the veritable bonanza of people her family has pissed off threw sulphuric acid on the left side of her body when she was five. Fortunately, her eyes were shut at the time, preventing blindness, but most of the skin on the left side of her face, head, shoulder, and chest was melted beyond recognition. The scarring pulls and twists the corners of her eye and mouth upward, giving her a slightly demented and cruel look and bequeathing her the nickname 'Evil'. Parts of the cartilage of her ear were fused to the side of her head, creating a little black hole surrounded by shiny pink scarring that looks more like it belongs on a Klingon then a human being. Most of of the hair on the left side of her head will never grow, leaving a patch that is shiny and pink with the skin mottled. Her parents still tell Evior she is beautiful and loved every night before she goes to sleep, but sometimes she can see the doubt in their eyes, see the trickle of fear every time she exits the tower door, the way they keep her off to the furthest side in press conferences even though everyone in the country knows what happened, that they strong suggest she gets homeschooled her even though both her siblings go to school without question, the disappointment and loathing in her grandmother's eyes when it is Evior's turn to be kissed on the cheek. She has some vain hope when side bangs come back into style that she'll be able to cover up her scarring and be 'loved for who she really is on the inside', but it's a futile hope. Once, when she is fifteen, petulant and daring,  her father tells her she is beautiful and she say 'No I'm not.' The worst part is the silence after the words slip from her mouth, the way her father doesn't vocalize his disagreement. And somehow that's worse then the lies. She sees the pain in his eyes as he gets up after a few seconds of waiting awkwardly and steps out of her bedroom door to go to Ninja's door. They never talk about it and her parents keep on saying it, but now she knows that the truth hurts more then the most powerful of acids burning into her skin ever could. Somehow though, when Atom tells her she's the most beautiful girl in the world when they're seventeen and drunk for the first time, she knows he's not lying at all. 
  3. That when you die your life flashes before your eyes. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. But Evior's parents have no way of knowing that. Evior thinks about a lot of things on the way down, but her life never flashes before her eyes. 
  4. That Evior should be wary around Loki. Evior has always been Loki's favourite of Thor and Jane Foster's offspring and she finds it vaguely comforting to be around him. It was Loki, not Grandmother, Grandfather, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, or Sif who was the first of her father's family to welcome her into the fold. It was Loki who took five year old Evior into the gardens of Asgard and conjured flowers and dragons and told her wonderful stories about halcyon days of old. It was Loki who stroked her hair and sang her lullabies in languages not even her father understands when as she screams after the Incident. It was Loki above all other members of her Asgardian family bar her father, who attended each and every one of her graduations. As pop-psychology-y as it seems, whenever Evior looks into her uncle's eyes all she can see, under the layers of strength and lies, is a scared little boy who wants to be loved for who he is. 
  5. That apologies mean something. When Evior was very small and her mother was irritated by Evior constantly calling her name she told her that when you said a word too much it lost its meaning.  Ever since she's been extremely careful with what she says, limiting her words as much as possible, out of, she supposes, some early childhood fear that if she spoke too much the words would disappear. It is the same thing with apologies, people say 'I'm sorry' all the time and never really mean it and so after a while the words mean nothing at all. They just become a noise with which to satisfy and placate, rather like her father's noncommittal grunting and her mother's absentminded tutting. Inauthentic not only to the victim but to the offender as well, having said the words so many times that they mean nothing at all except as a way to get what they desire. Evior never apologizes.
  6. That they don't go to Asgard because Father has Avenging to do and Mother has her Science-ing. Evior sees the expressions when her father looks at Uncle Loki, sees the way the smile slides away from her father's eyes when Evior wraps her arms around her uncle's neck. It's the same look Evior sees on her father when they meet Dr Blake, the same look that Christine Everhart gets whenever Tony and Pepper appear together. The same look that Uncle Loki gives to Father whenever Grandfather pats Father on the shoulder or Grandmother hugs Father and Mother. The green-eyed monster.
  7. That Evior is valued just as much as if she were a boy. This is true, but it is also not true. Evior knows her father, knows his family and what they stand for. No matter how much they love her, to an Asgardian, a boy is always preferable. 
  8. That she should be proud of who she is. Evior is not proud, she does not love herself. She hates that she will never be good enough for her father's family, that she will never be strong enough to serve the Allfather the way her brother could, smart enough to follow Mother, Uncle Tony, Uncle Bruce, Einstein, Atom, and Roman into the sciences, wily enough to become the next Abagnale like Loki, Zuzu, and Auntie Natasha, righteous enough to join in the alphabet soup of militaries and agencies like Eero, Brynja, and PJ. She is scarred, plain, and utterly average.
  9. That returning to the people shows you love them. This is bullshit. When Evior turns ten she and Atom run away for three weeks. They camp out in the Impressionist wing of the Met under Degas' 'The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage'. Every day they wander around the galleries, staring at all the different paintings and sculptures. Atom becomes particularly fond of Picasso and William Morris while Evior's tastes are rooted firmly in Munch and Goya. The staff get to know them and smile when they point at the various pictures. Atom matter-of-factly talks about the silkscreening process to an elderly docent who smiles and offers him a peppermint candy, which he takes with a smile and says they're his mother's favourite while Evior attempts to imitate one of Degas' dancers. Someone asks their name once and Evior holds out her hand like she'd seen Auntie Pepper do and introduce them as Adam and Eve. She doesn't see the irony until she is fifteen and immersed in an obsessive study of religious documents with Atom in an attempt to prove some crackpot conspiracy they'd 'discovered' after too many sleepless nights reading  _The DaVinci Code_  and three different translations of Dante's _Divine Comedy_. Whenever she goes to the Met the staff always recognize her, waving when they see her and asking about 'Adam'. In tenth grade, in one of her brief forays into the education system, Lonny, the guard for the Picasso room waves and asks how her friend is in front of her entire class. Evior grins and tells him that he just got in to CalTech. Lonny gets her class into the observations booth of the restoration room. Nevertheless, no matter what she tells her parents and aunts and uncles upon her return, Evior knows she would rather never left. The only reason they went back was because they both ran out of money and Atom refused to leave her alone in the gallery (which was probably reasonable; she was planning on moving to the Main Branch of the New York Public Library after he left and nobody would have been able to find her after that, she'd had her route all planned out, exactly how many museums and libraries she'd have to stay in until she turned eighteen.), but the point was, she didn't go back because she cared about her family, she went back because Atom called the police tip line that had been set up to find them and she was escorted back in a police car. 
  10. That everyone dies. Evior's father is a god. This fact, though revelled in from a young age, has not been properly explored by her siblings. As her mother, Evior, and her siblings get older, her father stays the same age, frozen at a perfect golden twenty-something forever. Evior cannot stand to watch as her mother celebrates her fortieth, fiftieth, sixtieth, seventieth birthdays with a lined face and greying hair while her father remains unchanged. She hates it because no matter how sweet people say it is when Prince Thor picks up his aged wife in his arms, all Evior can see is the crippling fear in her mother's eyes that the day will come that she is no longer enough for her eternally golden husband. Evior knows that her father will look exactly the same as he does for her mother's funeral as he will for Evior and all her sibling's funerals, their children, and their grandchildren. No immortality is worth that. There's a reason why Evior doesn't go see her parents much anymore.




	5. Suzanne Margaret 'Zuzu' Rogers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That killing people is wrong.

He: "So why do you do this?"

Me: "I'm not sure I have an answer to that."

"There must be something that you at least tell yourself."  
"Well, perhaps I'm the sort of person apt to do something for no good reason other than I can't think of a reason not to."

- _The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl_  


~

 

 

 

  1. That killing people is wrong. Zuzu's father has killed people. He doesn't like to talk about it, none of the vets that Zuzu meets at the cenotaph every Remembrance Day. But they kill and they consider their killings justified and they would do it again. There are so many instances where killing is considered justified.
  2. That theft is hard. When she's sixteen Zuzu steals fifty million cash from Uncle Tony. After Aunt Pepper's accountants spend almost a month trying to figure out where it went, Zuzu leaves it on his lab bench. Easy as fucking pie. Zuzu hears there's a French Impressionist painting that was looted by the Germans in the Second World War that's been spotted in a bank in Istanbul.
  3. That you can't smuggle a pound of plastic explosives onto a plane in your carry-on. Because with enough duct tape  _anything_  is possible.
  4. That she needs to sleep. Scientifically, there is no argument, the human body needs sleep to properly carry out its functions. But to Zuzu it is worth it. She loves staying up all night, loves that feeling when days and nights blur together in on solid haze, loves the dead silence on her family's otherwise always noisy house in Hoboken, loves the ache in the pit of her stomach that she gets at five in the morning when it's still too early to get out of bed, loves watching the sun come up over the New York skyline, loves the feeling of power she gets at midnight when everyone else is asleep, loves watching as the world comes to life before her her. She does not need sleep for these feelings alone will sustain her. Besides, midnight is when you get the fastest wifi connection. 
  5. That everyone is equal. That's bullshit. People aren't equal. That's some trumped up garbage made up by overly PC, upper-middle class pussyfooter types who want to make themselves feel better about their white picket fences, two cars, brand name clothes, and 2.5 kids. Smarter people are better then stupid people. Strong people are better then weak people. Heathy people are better then sick people. But more then anything else, rich people will always be better then poor people. Atom, Natalie, Evie, Arrow, and Ninja would have better lives then ZuZu and her brothers could ever dream of. If Dad was a real person and not Captain America he'd be a teacher or a cop or a shop owner, not someone terribly high-class, likewise, their mother would probably end up being like her siblings, a secretary or mid-level employee. No matter what though, they were still Rogers and Hills, who were still Nobodies, and the others were Starks and Thorssons and -dotrs, who were Somebodies. 
  6. That there was no such thing as the perfect murder. Alfred Hitchcock was once asked if he though there was a perfect crime his response was that he didn't know, that's what made it perfect. Zuzu spends innumerable days trying to create the perfect crime. On PJ's eighteenth birthday Zuzu gets a postcard ' _Dad yelled at you when you told him he was the perfect serial killer. I'm doing it, I'm joining the Army._ ' 
  7. That violence doesn't make you stronger. But all of the truly strong people ZuZu knows are violent or have been subjected to violence. Maybe it doesn't make everyone stronger, but it's made her parents and her de facto family stronger. Violence was the tie that brought Zuzu's little family together and fighting together has made them strong.
  8. That people die before their time. Duh, that's what 'their time' means.
  9. That the family homes are havens from the world outside. There is a photograph that has hung in Auntie Natasha's parlour for as long as any of them could remember. It's a reproduction of a black and white photo of a woman sleeping on the crumpled roof of a car, her gloved hand gently resting on her chest, the roof of the car formed to her body, as if it was a particularly squishy mattress that she had sunken into. The picture has hung on the pure white wall facing the door between an architectural plan of St Basil's Cathedral and a charcoal study for Artemisia Gentileschi's   _Judith Slaying Holofernes_  I, each framed in plain black and matted on stark white. The image is so peaceful compared to the hectic and ominous nature of the other images in the room. Three years after the Banners' deaths, Nick Fury laughs hollowly about how very characteristic of Natasha to hang a photo of a dead woman on her wall. Atom wonders hollowly if that was where Evior got her inspiration.
  10. That her parents would always love her. When Zuzu is ten her fifteen-year-old cousin, Marilyn, gets knocked up by her eighteen-year-old boyfriend, the one that Zuzu's uncle told Mari to break up with when he met him six months ago when Josh was taking Mari to her sophomore homecoming. Mari lived with Zuzu's family for five months until the baby was born. Josh bailed after they went to the first OB/GYN appointment and Zuzu's mom ended up paying for everything because Uncle Lou refused to pay. Zuzu remembers when Mari went into labour, remembers when she cried for a mother who didn't come, remembers watching her father and brothers frantically try to get one of her parents or siblings to come down to be with their daughter. The baby never had a name, that is the one thing that will always stick out for Zuzu in her memories of that night, as soon as the baby was born a social worker came in trailed by Uncle Lou and Aunt Lena and whisked the baby away. 'Better for her not to become too attached' they'd said. Zuzu's parents had protested, but they were ignored or overruled. The baby was packed off to some childless couple and as soon as she was able, Mari was brought back to her parents' house, the fight seemingly vanished from her when the baby was taken. This was a cautionary tale for Zuzu; if she pushed hard enough, even her parents would stop loving her.



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The photo Natasha has hanging on her wall is a photo of a young woman names Evelyn McHale who jumped off the 89th floor observation deck Empire State Building on April 30, 1947. The photograph was taken by Robert C Wiles and is, in my opinion, one of the most stunningly beautiful photographs ever.


	6. Howard Abraham 'Einstein' Rogers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That there's no shame in being named after Howard Stark.

  
“Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be.” 

 

– Peter Gibbons,  _Office Space_

**~**

  1. That there's no shame in being named after Howard Stark. How can you be proud of who you're named after when your namesake's own son calls you 'Einstein' so that he doesn't have to call you Howard? He asks his Dad once and Steve Rogers simply says 'Howard Stark was a human'.
  2. That his family are all Good. Evie explained the difference to Einstein when she was sixteen and somewhere between drunk and hungover with his brother's head on her shoulder and Atom's in her lap. 'Uncle Tony, Auntie Pepper, Auntie Natasha, Uncle Loki, Grandpa Nick; they're all Great,' he remembers being able to hear the capitalization in her voice, 'But your parents, my parents, they will only ever be Good.' They're righteous men and women who selflessly put themselves at risk for the Greater Good, they are not morally ambiguous people who do things for reasons often completely unrelated to Right and Wrong, like debt or money or personal safety or guilt. They are Good but they are not Great.
  3. _Bisnonna_  Hill is always right, even when she's not. It doesn't really make sense to Einstein until he spends three weeks living with  _Bisnonna_  Hill, and then his mother begins to make sense to him. There is no reasoning with  _Bisnonna_  Hill, and Einstein admires the way she upholds her convictions. She is old and suborn and strong, and most of her notions went out with corsets and the 1800s. Einstein wonders what it would take for him to be that confident.
  4. That Uncle Tony is being sarcastic when he calls him Einstein. Einstein can tell that he's not, really, and that Uncle Tony has expectations of him that are equal to those for his children. Mom tries to go easy on him - really, on all of them - but Einstein looks up to Uncle Tony, and so holds himself up to high standards. The results of his efforts are good grades, self-discipline and a sense of accomplishment. The Starks never experience that pride of accomplishment, that he knows of. Maybe that's why they never seem to get over being insecure teenagers.
  5. That if you didn't cheer for the Yankees you were a nobody. Einstein's dad would deliver papers despite his asthma to get to go to Yankee games with Uncle Bucky. Einstein's mom's family would put aside their petty familial differences, put on their blue and grey, and gather around  _Bisnonno_  and  _Bisnonna_ 's  TV set and watch the game. Hell, in the Hill household there were two religions, the one presided over by the pope and the one presided over by the umpire; you didn't miss church or a game without a mighty good reason on pain of retribution. When he was twelve one of Einstein's friends from school took him to a Mets game he was hooked, maybe it was the danger of crossing four generations of his family on the issue, maybe it was the colours of the uniforms, maybe it was how lively and enthusiastic the crowd was, maybe it was something else entirely. Either way,  _Bisnonna_  gave him the evil eye when he came to the next Mets/Yankees game in orange and blue. He could handle that, because the euphoria of having something of his own, something he loved of his own, more than made up for the glares and borderline mean teasing from his family.
  6. That you must discard the past to embrace the future. This is not something Einstein's family talks about but rather something that simply happens. While Mamma and her family still speak Italian with each other, each generation's grasp of the language lessens. Dad didn't have any family to carry on traditions with, but he doesn't even carry on the ones that he and Uncle Bucky had with the Sisters in the convent. Dad insists on using one of the new digital phones that they have in the house no matter how much they curse it even though Uncle Tony bought him a perfectly functioning rotary phone as a gift.
  7. That he will never meet another person like him. Einstein meets Fitzsimmons Ward when they're both twelve; she's sitting on the floor outside Agent May's office reading the _On the Origin of Species_  and he's wandering the halls having gotten lost looking for his mother. It turns out she's on summer break from some school in England and 'Oma' is just babysitting her because her father doesn't want her in the lab when her mother and 'Uncle Leo' are working with the 'fun stuff' after the last time. She talks about a mile a minute in a weird English-American hybrid accent and he understands every word of it, which is strange, because whenever girls talk fast Einstein struggles to keep up. She points him in the right direction and twenty minutes later Einstein realises he doesn't even know her name. He asks him mother at dinner that night because his mother knows these sort of things and, after a suitable amount of heckling, is informed that she is 'Fitzsimmons Ward, daughter of two of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best agents; completely brilliant and known to taking great delight in terrifying junior agents, much to her father's amusement and my irritation'. They start emailing when she goes back to England and by the time it's summer break again everyone at SHIELD calls them FitzSimmons 2.0, something which confuses Einstein greatly until she explains about her mother and Uncle Leo. (Later, much later, Howard will wonder if he even knew Fitzsimmons at all.)
  8. That the world is worth saving. Sometimes, when his mother comes home beaten and broken or his father comes home with another story nobody will ever hear, Einstein stares out a window at the world, looking at all the people, at Mr Luciani, who pees on his neighbour's lawn every morning out of spite, or Mrs Peck, who screams at her children, or the man in the paper who pushed his mother in front of a subway. When they are so full or animosity, apathy, and cruelty are the human race really worth fighting for?
  9. That being an individual is a good thing. Einstein sees the value of being able to stand out in any crowd, like Atom and Natalie and Roman with their terrifying intellects, sharp tongues, and gorgeous appearance. Yet Einstein thinks ultimately there's a great unacknowledged value in being a nobody that people like Atom and Natalie will never be able to see because they are ringmasters and magicians, they will never be the backstage crew, they will never understand that the ringmaster has less power then the lowliest of stage hands. They do not see the power of being no one. 
  10. That music is the food of love. Einstein's not really sure which parent through quoting that particular Shakespeare verse when he came to them for dating advice was a good idea. They do take him out for ice cream when Joanna Beckett-Castle rejects his and his pseudo-song. (Leonard Cohen, brilliant though he may be, is not an example to learn to sing by.)




	7. Eero 'Arrow' Thorsson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That there are gods.

  
Love your rage, not your cage

- _V for Vendetta_

  
_  
_~

 

 

  1. That he is still loved no matter what. This is both true and untrue. Eero knows his parents love him just as much as they love Brynja and Evior, but Eero sees the confusion in his father's eyes whenever he looks at Arrow after he brings home Jonathan. They don't have gay people in Asgard and the very idea that a prince of Asgard wouldn't get married to a nice girl and have a bevy of sons to be trained for the Allfather's army was befuddling to say the least. So, after Father drank too much the fifth time Eero brought someone home he just didn't bother anymore. He'd introduce the new boyfriend to his sisters and adopted cousins, and occasionally even his mother if it got really serious (this was a rarity) he probably wouldn't introduce his father until he was engaged. There's a reason why Eero doesn't stop by much anymore.
  2. That there were times when quoting wasn't appropriate. This may only have been in response to that time when he was five and Director Fury and Uncle Tony were yelling at each other so Eero climbed on the table and, in his most authoritative five-year-old voice, yelled 'Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!' (This may have been one of the rare instances where he did something and everyone was too amused to punish him.). Eero found that if you didn't know what to say someone else did.
  3. That there are gods. Eero asks himself sometimes if, despite the purported godliness of his father's family, if there really are gods, or if they are merely men who are worshipped as gods by those who cannot understand. His father is not a god Eero thinks, he is fallible and weak, just like everyone else, yet humanity chooses to gloss over these failures and focus on the lustrous blond hair, the super-strength, the immortality, the lightning, and all Prince Thor's other 'enhancements'. Even Loki, who is the most otherworldly of the bunch, is more man then he'd like them all to think, and would probably make Freud wet himself with glee over all the unresolved, parent-stemming issues that spew out of Eero's uncle. They are not gods, they are men. 
  4. That it was a battle-cry. There's this story that Eero's father tells about Auntie Natasha is the grand Asgardian tradition of war-story-telling. It was from back before any of the kids were born, before Auntie Natasha and Uncle Bruce were together. Uncle Bruce had been in the lab, working on some great experiment when the Army, led by a rather unpleasant individual who called himself General Ross, came barging in, attempting to reclaim their 'property'. Uncle Bruce Hulked out in a truly spectacular way almost immediately after he saw his former almost father-in-law in the doorway. When Father tells the story as the Hulk lets out a battle-cry that shattered all the windows in Stark Tower Natasha charges in, heroically saving the General despite her own hatred of him before soothing the Hulk into a calming sleep with her special brand of magnetism. When Auntie Darcy, who was huddled in a corner of the lab trying not to get stomped on, tells the story she too says in was a fearsome roar, yet there is something in her eye that lets Eero know that it was not the screams of a battler-ready warrior, but rather a cry of pure agonizing misery. Auntie Natasha drops from a pushed-aside ceiling tile onto the only non-trashed table in the lab and let out a desperate scream in her own broken soprano that echoed in the clinical emptiness of the lab. They scream back and forth at each other for almost an hour before they sits down, the Hulk resting his head on Auntie Natasha's thigh as she strokes his hair. She sings Russian lullabies that haven't exited her lips in almost a century.
  5. That it wasn't his fault. When Atom sixteen, drunk to a point that would have made a young Tony Stark proud, and lustily gazing at Evior from across the room, he told Eero, in a deceptively conversational tone, that it was his fault, 'She wouldn't have been hit, but she dodged in front of you to save you and took the full blast.' He attempts to brush Atom's remarks off, yet 'It's your fault' is burned into his mind, searing his brain every time he looks at his sister. Eero watches the tape of the fateful press conference later, watches her almost instinctually move to block him, as the acid sears and melts her skin. He asks his mother and she denies it in the soothing yet vaguely untrustworthy way that parents do. It's all his fault. 
  6. That love is the strongest force for good in the world. Love is simply a tool, nothing more, nothing less, simply a tool to be used and abused as humanity sees fit.
  7. That the truth will set you free. This is one of Jane Foster's favourite maxims when dealing with her offspring. It's bullshit, complete and utter bullshit. The truth doesn't set you free; more often than not it encases you in a giant lead box with no air holes. How can the truth set you free when, by telling the truth, you're lying to someone. What happens if the truth is something the other person doesn't like, if it's nasty and dirty, far better kept hidden under the piles if lies where none can see it. What then?
  8. That he would be loved for who he is. He's not. Whoever tells people that is a liar of the first degree. After Jonathan there's Cecil, who has perfect blond hair and loves Eero best when he puts gel in his hair, laces up a pair of carefully distressed boots, and spends time discussing the disaffection of Gen Z over overpriced coffees in Brooklyn. After Cecil there's Karl, who wears glasses and tweed un-ironically and loves Eero best when they're sitting on the couch reading Foucault. After that there's Robert, who teaches Eero to play Rugby and Philipe, who likes the glitz and glamour of Eero's parents' world. None of them love Eero they way he is and he does not love them the way they are, they look at each other and see what they want to see, and maybe that's just the way life works.
  9. That families love each other equally. He loves both his sisters. He even loves them equally. Yet in some twisted sort of way, he loves Brynja more. She is so easy to love, she is a simple give-and-take, there are no complicated terms, no guilt or fear. Evior was the exact opposite, loving her was like walking through a mine field in the dark, and he loved her so much, yet people kept getting hurt and sometimes he want even sure if she loved him at all.
  10. That love is the greatest gift someone can give. Years later, when Eero is an old man, he remembers watching his beloved sister slowly die every day, from the moment the acid was flung into the air. All the times she ran away form home, those nights when someone would get a call from telling them to come pick her up from jail or the hospital after she was fished off the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty or the Hudson River or got her stomach pumped again for alcohol or pills. Sometimes Atom would call Eero to drag him out of bed to coax his sister down from hanging off the guardrail of the Empire State Building and watch as his beloved Evie died a little more. But she stays because they love her so much and she doesn't want to hurt them even as she hurts herself. He can't think of the last time he saw his sister really smile.



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters left!
> 
> 'Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!' comes from 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' and is spoken in what is probably the best scene in a comedy movie ever.


	8. Philip James 'PJ' Rogers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That he's ready.

  
Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically, to those who hardly think about us in return.

-T.H. White, _The Once and Future King_

 

~

 

 

  1. That he's ready. ' _You're ready baby._ ' his mom says on the first day of school. ' _You can do this son._ ' his dad says before he pitches his first game. ' _You'll knock 'em dead._ ' his sister tells him before he deploys. ' _You'll be the best._ ' his brother tells him as he waits for his fiancée to walk down the aisle. ' _You'll be perfect._ ' his great-grandmother tells him when he holds his first child in his arms. They all lied. He's never ready for what comes next.
  2. That being named after a hero is something to be proud of. PJ's not stupid. He's named after Phil Coulson. The guy's a freakin' legend in S.H.I.E.L.D.. He grows up hearing stories about 'That time in Nicaragua/Siberia/Afganistan/wherever – wait, what's your clearance level? Oh, okay, well then, just forget everything I just told you.' Sometimes, PJ really hates Phil Coulson. PJ's also named after his father's best friend and a bone fide American war hero, James Buchanan Barnes. Or maybe the memory of James Barnes, since the whole 'Winter Soldier, Auntie Natasha's boy toy/mentor/Soviet spy/assassin/general Not Nice person' came out. PJ sometimes thinks that he'd rather be a James then a Philip. Philip was a Good Man while James was so much more and less; a hero, a villain, a soldier, a spy, a sidekick, so many different things conveyed within one man, so many different aspects to live up to.ds and family, but even if somewhere out there Phil Coulson has all these things, deep down he'll only ever be a guy in a suit.
  3. That there isn't peace in the world. There is peace in the world when PJ's parents push back the furniture and rug and swing dance in the living room. There's peace in the world when Einstein sings along to the  _That '70s Show_  theme. There's peace in the world when Zuzu reads from Harlequins she's pinched from Ninja and Natalie in a breathy voice she swears Auntie Darcy taught her.
  4. That it's okay to be scared. It's not just a pride thing, though it's a little embarrassing when your mother is stone faced and you're fighting the flight part of your fight-or-flight response with all you've got. But it's not just that, it's that being scared is irrational, because, even if it holds a function, when you are scared judgement is clouded, mistakes are made, and people get hurt.
  5. That, if you go fast enough and are smart enough you can outrun anything. Everything catches up with you eventually.
  6. That you just have to get over it. If 'stiff upper lip' was an Olympic sport PJ's parents' only competition would be each other. PJ is positive he's never seen his mother cry and even when his father breaks down he doesn't really break down, mostly his dad just drinks bourbon that he can't get drunk on and sits really stiffly. So PJ tries, he really, really does, when Atom kisses Evie's left cheek when they were three, six, fifteen, eighteen. When, on Evie's thirteen birthday, Atom holds out his hand and says 'May the best man win.' But it was never even a competition, not really anyway. Atom was always Evie's favourite, even before the Incident. Atom knows this, PJ knows this, hell, every single goddamn person knows this. But if he was useful for nothing else, Steve Rogers taught his sons to be graceful losers, and if PJ can be sure of one thing it is that he is not ashamed of how he behaved at any point in the whole affair.
  7. That if he swallowed gum it would stay in his stomach until he died. It totally doesn't work like that. He had Atom check. 
  8. That it took sacrifice to be a hero. It doesn't. Heroes are the bus drivers who deal with bullshit from every unapologetic asshole in the world. Teachers were heroes who had to watch endless streams of punk ass kids streaming through their classrooms wondering which one's going to be the next Steve Jobs and which one's going to be the next Bundy. Waitresses and waiters, crossing guards, people who do random acts of kindness, those are the world's true heroes.
  9. That dying alone is the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. Philip James Rogers does not die surrounded by family, he dies alone in his apartment, reading  _If I Ran the Zoo_ , given to him by his sister, his wife having predeceased him a few years ago and their children scattered across the globe. The worst thing that could happen to a person is knowing that they didn't make a difference. PJ isn't sure if anything he ever did mattered at all.
  10. That he's not ready. He is ready to enter the Army at twenty when his mother wraps her arms around him and, in a rare show of extreme emotion, cries. His father hugs PJ and tells him how proud he is of him, but PJ can see the doubt and fear in his father's eyes.




	9. Fitzsimmons Ward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That her father is a a bad man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY CANADA DAY! May you, Sir John, and all your gin-soaked cronies, have another fabulous year of smug, alcoholic pride.
> 
> The formatting gets pretty wonky at the end, so please ignore it. Or cry, if that's the sort of thing you cry over. Maybe if I ever feel like procrastinating I'll futz around with it and fix it, but no promises. Sorry.

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.  
They kill us for their sport.  
-William Shakespeare, _King Lear_

1\. That her father is a a bad man. Skye tells her this when she's three and doesn't understand why Daddy can't come to his younger brother's funeral and she and Mummy have to go without him and stand in a freezing Massachusetts cemetery in January and watch a man she's never met be lowered into the ground. People who claim to be her family stare at her and Mummy and an old lady who smells like Aqua Velva and Camels leans down to pats her head. After, a man with burn scars on his hand, a broken nose, and a cruel glint in his eye strokes her cheek and, completely ignoring her mother, in whose arms she rests, introduces himself to Fitzsimmons as 'Your Uncle Maynard'. She bites his hand. His blood, she will decide, tastes like power. This makes Daddy laugh when Mummy tells him. Her father isn't a bad man, her father is a man who was failed by those who were supposed to take care of him so he turned to those who would. Her father should not be ashamed of the choices he made, those who put him in that position should be.

2\. That she can live a normal life. Fitz is packed off to Cambridge when she's fifteen and too precocious for her own good. She comes home for Christmas and goes to the Galapagos with her mother for Spring Break and does all the normal stuff that child prodigies do. Or at least she thinks it's normal. She is not so naive it think that everybody or even a significant number of people have only ever seen their father under armed guard or by six years of planning and vetting. But Fitz has nothing to compare it to and so she assumes. She wonders what it would feel like to be normal.

3\. That she should take care of those in her care. John Garrett took care of Daddy when he was in juvie. Uncle Phil helped Skye, Mummy, and Uncle Leopold. Fitzsimmons looks at her students and hears her mother's voice in her head telling her to give them a chance, but Fitzsimmons can never quite bring herself to; not when they laugh at her to her face, when they make fun of her age, when they hit on her, when they belittle her, when they question her right to teach them. Instead she takes a perverse delight in setting particularly difficult problems, in watching tears escaping the corner of their eyes, watching their cocky struts turn to dreading slumps as the year progresses. Fitzsimmons nurtures the few who could be really brilliant, but the rest she takes apart and laughs.

4\. That hospitals were nothing to be scared of. Mummy's always thrived in clinical environments, revelled in the sterility, the precision, the science of it. Daddy tolerates them, hospitals make him uncomfortable and twitchy, but he has trained himself, out of necessity, to stay put. When Fitzsimmons is eleven she falls off a catwalk at the Playground and breaks her arm so that her right radius juts out of her arm. Mummy spends the entire time she does first aid on her daughter doing yoga breathing exercises while Daddy clenches the steering wheel of the golf cart he commandeered so hard his hands go white. Fitzsimmons doesn't make a sound; not until the S.H.I.E.L.D. medics unload her plus her mother's careful bandaging, minus about 10% of her blood, onto a stretcher and whisk her towards S.H.I.E.L.D.'s medical facilities she begins to scream, her mother will later tell her, like a banshee. It is only her parents, humming soothingly and moving any sharp implements well out of reach, that keep her from doing any serious damage, though the doctors have to keep her under sedation for most of her stay. It's not rational, not logical, she tells Mummy, it's weak and stupid, but she can't help it.

5\. That S.H.I.E.L.D. is family. Fitzsimmons doesn't see her Grandmama and Grandfather very often; they hardly ever leave England, apart from academic conferences rarely leaving their orbit of Cambridge and a rather desolate cottage straight out of Brontë during the hols. In the sense of family that Howard has, full of love and laughter and baking, these people are not her family; Mummy very rarely takes her to visit, and it's even rarer that Dad comes, since it's a couple reams of paperwork (plus cross-checking and quadruplicates) to get him permission to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, and when he does come Grandfather stares beadily at Dad and asks about which university he went to (he didn't), even though Grandfather knows the answers while Grandmama talks about the nice position that just opened up at one of the colleges (sometimes, when she's desperate, Grandmama will even mention Oxford, though even Grandfather poo-poohs that idea.) and the nice Victorian that went on the market just a few blocks from the Wren. Sometimes Fitzsimmons thinks her parents consider moving just to make Grandmama stop mentioning it. Her father doesn't have a family, he just has S.H.I.E.L.D. and a team that don't trust him, a team who hates her father yet would be her family, and they sort of are, in a bizarre, slightly cliché way, each of them carving out an archetype to fulfil. There is Uncle Leopold, who makes her tea with a Bunsen burner and chemistry equipment, and Skye, who talks about boys with her and tries to be the big sister Fitz never had, and Uncle Phil, who insists on being called Pops and picks Fitzsimmons up from school every day that her parents are on a mission and can't, and Melinda, who teaches Fitzsimmons to drive and put on makeup and holds her when she cries because Daddy is in one of the 'stans getting shot to regain their trust at and Mummy is busy working or getting shot at too. Sometimes Howard's family try to merge her into their family unit of Rogers and and Barton-Lewises and Odinssons and Starks and Banner-Romanovs and sometimes she considers letting them, but Fitzsimmons is not one of them, her parents are not superheroes or billionaires or gods; her mother is a scientist and her father is a traitor, neither high-flying superheroes who practically set up camp on the moral high ground. Maria Hill takes her home for Thanksgiving once, out of pity, Fitzsimmons suspects more then anything else, when she's thirteen and Director Fury's sent her parents' team to some classified location to save to world once more. She is crammed in next to Howard's Bisnonna, a woman who holds court at one end of the table, dispensing advice in rapid Italian. Fitzsimmons likes the old matriarch, who improves Fitzsimmons' Italian (Daddy will be pleased) doesn't ask any questions (it seems like Fitzsimmons isn't the first stray to be brought home), and insists on Fitzsimmons taking seconds because she's too thin. Fitz wonders if this is what family feels like.

6\. That Fitzsimmons needs people around her. Somewhere between Fitzsimmons becoming a fellow and Howard marrying Helena Wayne, who is rich, beautiful, speaks flawless Italian, and is a fucking _superhero_ , the daily emails, phone calls, and texts turn into weekly and monthly ones, eventually trickling into nothing and Fitzsimmons realizes how much she (rather foolishly) counted on Howard always being there. Eventually Fitzsimmons has a day when she realises she's only spoken to students and colleagues about work and Fitzsimmons finds she does not mind (She wonders if this is why Mummy and Uncle Leopold clung so tightly together, because for all her interests in solitary pursuits, Jemma Simmons has always been a social creature; despite her intelligence, Fitzsimmons is her father's daughter.). Fitzsimmons buys a flat in a big, anonymous city to stay in when she isn't teaching, and lives in a sort of limbus orbit of flat, college, and lab, with occasional deviations to the shops and conferences. Fitzsimmons knows she will eventually disappear completely in the world of academia and she finds she does not mind.

7\. That one day they will be done. When Fitzsimmons is born, her first birthday, her second birthday, her third, when so-and-so is defeated, when the power transfer is complete. Later it's when Fitzsimmons finishes school, when the house is payed off, when Dad's threat level is decreased, when there's enough in the bank, when Uncle Phil retires, when Daddy's threat level is decreased again, when Uncle Leo retires, when when when when. There is no end just as there was no beginning. Fitzsimmons Ward is many things but stupid has never been one of them and she will not allow herself to be caught it the Charybdis that is S.H.I.E.L.D..

8\. That it is sometimes hard to find beauty in the world. Fitzsimmons finds beauty everywhere, but she thinks that sometimes her father and Melinda are too tired too see it. There is beauty in the sun rising over Cambridge, in the perfection of the nervous system, in old bookshops, in the way a knife cut through flesh, in the sound of complete silence, in riots, in the way Mummy sings along to Maria Callas when she thinks no one's there, in fire, in the sound of Fitzsimmons' favourite shoes on the path to Grandmama and Grandfather's cottage. There is so much beauty in the world just waiting to be seen.

9\. That the Winter Soldier is not to be meddled with. The first time she meets him she's eighteen and it's Steve Rogers' birthday and for some reason, between Uncle Phil and Howard she was invited. Mummy has disappeared into a little cluster of fellow scientists who are engaging in some very energetic shop talk, which Fitzsimmons doesn't feel like joining in. Daddy doesn’t comes because he never comes to these things and Fitzsimmons wishes she were at home with him watching old episodes of _The Avengers_ and eating grilled cheese. But since Fitz was specifically invited Mummy said it would be rude to to come. So instead she plays a game her father taught her when S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to infiltrate a conference for prodigies and they were both suffering through the mixer. ' _Pick the most interesting person in the room, go over and talk to them then come back and tell my five things about them that they haven't said to you._ ' She finds him standing in the corner, tapping what sounds like the Internationale on the wall. Her father likes the slow approach, carefully integrating himself into the target's conscious, but Fitzsimmons rather thinks the direct approach will be the one that gets her what she wants.  
'Fitzsimmons.'  
'James.' ( _There's only three people on the guest list names James; Howard's older brother, War Machine, and the Winter Soldier._ ) She grins, _one down, four to go._  
'So what's your threat level?' It's always been a point of, not exactly pride, but something like it, that her father had a higher threat level then the Black Widow and her mother had a higher security clearance then most of the Avengers. It was like the government version of an Erdös-Bacon number.  
'Nine.' He seems smug about it too. The bastard. But still, he doesn't regret what he's done, no matter what his boyhood friend would like to think. Plus, S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't consider him to be as big a risk as the Hulk, though his demeanour suggests otherwise. He cocks his head at her, 'You?'  
'Two.' She is proud of the fact that she is a higher risk then Captain America, but that's mostly because when she was eight she outlined a plan to take over the Helicarrier to her father. Nick Fury was not impressed  
'Not bad. For an infant.' He grins, displaying his teeth sharkishly.  
'Not bad yourself. For a geriatric.' She twirls the drink she's not technically old enough to have in her hand and smiles.  
'You know what they say, better with age.' He wiggled his eyebrows.  
'Up to a point, then it's just all downhill from there.' She gave him a once-over and winced sympathetically.  
'But not dead yet.'  
'There is that.' She smiled sardonically. 'I suppose you don't subscribe to the ''Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse" theory of living?'  
'I still have time to have dashing earthly remains.' He edges onto the balcony, and stares at the view.  
She perches on the rail, the balancing act between perfect control and falling, probably to her death, and looks thoughtfully at the street below.  
'They look like ants.' She points at the movement below, 'Waiting to be squashed.'  
'Fee fi fo fum.' Fitzsimmons grins and grabs his hand.  
She fucks him on Howard’s bed and wonders if she has become her father. The next morning she’s updated to a six.

  
10\. That her mother is afraid of falling. Fitzsimmons knows about that day, knows how her mother sacrificed herself to save her team and how her father saved her mother from certain death. She also knows that her mother stares longingly out the window sometimes. All Icarus had wanted was to fly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left (unless we decide to invent more children, which is very unlikely)! Brynja, Jane and Thor's dreaded middle child. I promise that will be up soon. Ish.


	10. Brynja 'Ninja' Thorsdóttir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That their father would live forever.

God made man in His own image. But what if that included His rage, and His spite, and His indifference, and His cruelty? What if God made us too? We are all God’s children, you see. But God’s a bit of a bastard.   
-Being Human

1\. That home is where the heart is. This is one of Jane Foster's favourite platitudes to spout off absentmindedly whenever she's working and someone asks to go home. Ninja moves to Norway when she's twenty-two to work in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Tromsø station, and that's her home for a year, then home's Nagasaki, then Belgrade, then Dubai. Ninja would have kept travelling until she either got promoted, benched, or retired. Instead, after six years, PJ and Natalie drag her bodily out of her tiny apartment in Grozny back to the lap of luxury in New York. She can have hot showers without worrying about the water getting shut off or someone pounding on the door to get her to stop. She can walk down the street without covering her hair with a scarf. Ninja doesn't miss these things, but she knows that her home isn't where the heart is since her heart is with the people she loves but her home is wherever she makes it.

2\. That she can be anything she wants. For a not-insignificant period of Brynja's life she wanted to be a shieldmaiden like Lady Sif. She asked Grandmother when she was ten and was gently, if firmly turned down. Brynja decides to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent instead.

3\. That true badasses drink their coffee black. Strictly speaking, this was Auntie Natasha goading Father about how much sugar he puts in his coffee (He also puts butter in his coffee, but that's something else entirely.). Ninja knows she's not weak. She killed a man for the first time when she was seventeen and she's the youngest person to join S.H.I.E.L.D.. Ninja's not weak, not by a long shot. So what if she likes sugar and cream in her coffee in truly tooth-rotting amounts?

4\. That everything will be okay. Jane Foster tells her children this as they hunch in a filthy cell waiting for their father to rescue them. She tells them was they sit huddled around the TV screen, waiting for the familiar flash of scarlet cape. She says it when Evie lies broken in a hospital bed. It's not okay.

5\. That their father would live forever. Thor used to sometimes say that he could only bear to be the length of his intestines apart from his wife. People took it as a cute, if somewhat off-colour joke, something which was far from unusual coming from Thor. But it wasn't, not really. Not in the ways that counted. Because a time would come when their father would leave them forever, would stop watching his daughter and son turn grey, would stop watching grandchildren and great-grandchildren be born. He would stop watching and start walking, whether it was the length of his intestines or the length away from earth, Brynja could not say, but he would walk away and he wouldn't look back. 

6\. That they are safe. This was something Brynja's mother would tell each of her children every night after Evior's Incident as she tucked them in, hugged them, and kissed their foreheads. She did this without fail, every night until one by one they left home. And sometimes Brynja believed her. And then bad things would happen, like their house getting blown up or someone getting shot or a legitimate bomb threat getting called in at her school. And suddenly they're not safe anymore.

7\. That she is not cruel. She once pulls out every single tooth in a man’s mouth while his children watch. He pisses himself and she tries not to gag at the stench or urine, blood, sweat, fear, and her own senseless violence. She cannot sleep without seeing his daughter’s face and she wonders what her father would think of her; if he would say that the guilt shows she is not a monster. But it is her job and orders are orders.

8\. That time heals all wounds. Brynja wonders about Evie sometimes, wonders why and wherefore until she makes herself sick. But it still hurts just as much as it did the day before.

9\. That you can’t have ice cream for dinner. Ninja went to college. You totally can.

10\. That there are no gods. Her father tells her this. She looks at the rusty red crescents under her nails as she folds her hands to her chest and kneels in front of the alter. All she can do is hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we have reached the end of this story. I don't know if either glassfacet or myself will write anymore for this series since we're both pretty busy, so, if this is the end I just want to say I've been honoured to get all of your encouraging comments and kudos and even corrections. Thanks.

**Author's Note:**

> As requested, an appendix of miscellany used.
> 
> Bryusovitch - Slavic naming tradition; Uses a patronymic rather then a middle name. Thus 'Son of Bryus (Bruce)'.  
> Alian - Natasha's father; According to Natasha's patronymic (Alianovna), her father's name is Alian Romanov  
> Ivan - Ivan Petrovitch and Ivan Vanko; the former is Natasha's foster father and mentor after her parents died in a fire, the latter is Whiplash, son of Professor Anton Vanko, whose relationship with Natasha is mirrored in Tony Stark and Steve Rogers' relationship.  
> Anton - Anton Vanko, creator of the Black Widow serum; part of Natasha's triumvirate of fathers along with Alian Romanov and Ivan Petrovitch.  
> Roma - The traditional Russian diminutive form of the name Roman.  
> Mama – Russian, Mother; Natasha  
> Papa – Russian, Father; Bruce  
> Dyadya - Uncle in Russian; Roma uses this to refer to the other male Avengers.  
> Tetya - Aunt in Russian; Roma uses this to refer to the Avengers' spouses.  
> Dedushka - Grandfather in Russian; Roma uses this to refer to Nick Fury and Brian Banner.  
> Zelenyy Voin - Green Warrior in Russian; Roma and Natasha use this to refer to the Hulk.  
> Lyubovnik – Lover in Russian; Natasha's pet name for Bruce.  
> Thorsdóttir and Thorsson – Scandinavian naming tradition; Uses a patronymic rather then a family name. Thus 'Son of Thor' and 'Daughter of Thor'.  
> Bisnonna – Italian; Great-Grandmother – Used by the Rogers-Hill children to refer to their maternal great-grandmother, Luisa Hill (née Gigli).  
> Bisnonno - Italian; Great-Grandfather - Used by the Rogers-Hill children to refer to their maternal great-grandfather.  
> Also, in order of birth the children are:  
> Natalie Maria Potts-Stark (m. Roman Banner)  
> Adam Yinsen Potts-Stark (m. Evior Thorsdóttir, her death, m. woman)  
> Roman Bryusovitch Banner (m. Natalie Potts-Stark  
> Evior Thorsdóttir (m. Adam Potts-Stark, her death)  
> Suzanne Margaret Rogers  
> Philip James Rogers (m. Yasmine, two children)  
> Brynja Thorsdóttir  
> Eero Thorsson (m. man)  
> Fitzsimmons Ward  
> Howard Abraham Rogers (m. Helena Wayne)  
> 


End file.
